The present invention relates to a calorimeter vessel and system for determining the heat of combustion of a sample.
Precision calorimeters typically include open top vessels in which a bomb for combusting a specimen is immersed in a manually filled vessel containing a pedetermined volume of water. The vessel is closed at the top and water circulated while monitoring its temperature initially and after the sample has been combusted to determine the change in temperature due to the energy content within the specimen. Either isothermal or adiabatic methods can be employed to determine the gross heat of combustion of hydrocarbon fuel samples calculated either in BTU's per pound, calories per gram, or other units. Prior art isothermal and adiabatic methods are disclosed in the American Society for Testing Materials Standard D2382-76 published in September of 1976 which described the construction of a calorimeter as well as methods of calculating the gross heat of combustion based upon temperature measurements employing such structure.